Shadow Dance

by Susan Andersen

  His eyes narrowed behind his lenses. “The gun is another matter. You have some serious misconceptions about a policeman’s need to carry a weapon. I’ll be having you know, lassie, that in the sixteen years I’ve been on the force, I have fired my gun exactly once in the line of duty. One soddin’ time, lass. As a rule, I keep it oiled and I keep it ready, but it only ever gets fired at the range. That doesn’t mean I wouldn’t point it at someone and pull the trigger if I felt the situation merited it. And I’ll not be bloody well apologizing to you or anyone else for carrying it or for being fully prepared to use it, if I must.”

  Amanda stared up at him, feeling utterly foolish and in the wrong. He was right, of course; she knew that. She was unreasonably antagonistic with this man, looking for obstacles to throw in his path the instant he came near her. She edged back a step, wishing he wouldn’t stand so close. There was something about him that made her feel the way she used to back in high school when the boys had first begun flirting with her, and her way of dealing with her sexual inexperience and uncertainties had been to lapse into hostile sarcasm.

  Amanda’s head tilted proudly. This was insane. She wasn’t seventeen, and she wasn’t inexperienced anymore. And she certainly didn’t have to stand here with her heart pounding, being made to feel the fool. So, she’d misjudged him this once; so what? The graceful thing would be to apologize, and then walk the hell away. But it sure aggravated her that his face lacked all expression. Didn’t the man ever mess up or do dumb things—say dumb things—like the rest of the world? It infuriated her that he could read her like a Dick and Jane primer while she couldn’t tell the first thing about what went on in his mind.

  Opening her mouth to say, “I’m sorry; I’ve been unpardonably presumptuous; forgive me,” Amanda was appalled instead to hear herself demand, “What do they do, MacLaughlin? Program you down at the station? I mean, how do you stay so detached? You’re like a damned robot. Nothing ever gets to you.”

  Amanda’s words died in her throat at the pure fury that twisted his strong-boned face. His hands grasped her shoulders, and all the anger he had managed to suppress earlier was there in his voice now. “You just have to keep pushing, don’t you? You dinna like my detachment? Fine. This should prove to you once and for all that I’m not your bleedin’ father, and I’m not a damn robot either.”

  He yanked her forward and kissed her. And, if before that instant she had thought he stood by aloofly and observed life from the sidelines, she discovered then she was mistaken. For there was nothing detached about his hungry mouth moving over hers, nothing aloof about the powerful grip of his arms on her back as they pressed her forward into the heat of his body, nor in his blunt fingers, tangled in her hair, grasping her skull. There was nothing detached at all, and his intensity laid waste to her powers of reasoning.

  His unexpected display of temper had stunned her, and he’d pulled her to him so quickly she’d hardly had time to react. Automatically, she raised her hands to ward him off. But for just an instant she was caught up in the contrast of how things as they appeared to be, and things as they actually were, could be so devastatingly different.

  For instance, MacLaughlin’s mouth appeared hard and stern, but, Lord help her…it was soft. Strong. Hot. But not hard—not hard at all. The only remotely harsh element of his kiss was the heavy morning beard of his unshaven jaw, abrading the tender skin of her face.

  Having hesitated for even that brief an instant, she forgot exactly what it was that she’d been about to object to. Being manhandled again, maybe? Um. Something like that. She didn’t remember and she didn’t care. Any objection she might have raised was swamped beneath a wave of excitement. And when her hands came into contact with the texture and temperature of his skin, her fingers, which had arrived with every intention of pushing him away, spread instead across his chest, burrowing beneath the light fan of hair, rubbing and sliding up over his collarbones to dig into the warm, resilient flesh that covered his muscular shoulders. Her eyes remained wide open and dazed.

  Tristan’s mouth kept opening over Amanda’s. Restlessly, he slanted his lips over the fullness of hers, pulling at her mouth with a soft, hungry suction. When she didn’t open to him immediately, he raised his head, stared into her eyes for a moment, and then came at her from another direction, using the hand in her hair to tilt her face to accommodate him. He widened his mouth around her lips and then slowly dragged it closed, tugging at her lips.

  She didn’t even think twice. Amanda’s lips simply parted beneath his, and Tristan made a wordless sound of satisfaction deep in his throat.

  His tongue was slow and thorough. It slid along her bottom lip and explored the serrated edges of her teeth. Releasing his grip on her head, Tristan pulled her closer into the heat of his body, moving his pelvis against her with suggestive oscillations. His tongue rubbed along hers, and nerves Amanda hadn’t even known she possessed flamed to acute, throbbing life. Her tongue surged up to challenge his and she arched against him, sliding her arms up to wrap tightly around the strong column of his neck, plunging her fingers into his crisp hair. She was aware of every muscle in his body as he pressed against her, and she could feel him, hard and hot and erect against her stomach. Murmuring soft sounds of excitement, she raised onto her toes, agilely lifting her left leg to hook the hollow of her knee behind his hard butt and pressing his hips forward with her calf until that hot rigidity was aligned to the pulsing hollow that throbbed between her legs with an urgent need to be filled.

  Very slowly, her eyelids slid closed.

  Tristan groaned and kissed her harder, aroused nearly to a frenzy. Meaning only to lean her against a support, but misjudging the distance from where they stood, he slammed her up against the wall of the apartment and rocked against her with slow, mindless insistence. One large hand slid slowly up the leg locked around his hip, stroking from knee to thigh, pulling her closer into him before easing beneath the high-cut leg of her leotard to grip her firm, tights-covered bottom with wide splayed fingers. “Oh, lass,” he breathed into her mouth, and then, unable to bear even that slight separation, he kissed her harder, his mouth hungry and a little rough against hers.

  Amanda tightened her grip around his neck and kissed him back, following his lead exactly.

  He eased his chest back enough to wedge his free hand between their tightly compressed bodies. Palm pressed flatly against the warm leotard bonded to her ribs, his thumb spread wide of the rest of his fingers, he slid his hand up until it covered her breast. They both inhaled sharply, simultaneously. Amanda’s back arched, pushing her breast more fully into his hand. Tristan’s hand kneaded and rotated, pressing the resilient fullness back against the wall of her chest, his fingers curving to capture the overflow.

  He was frustrated by the tights and the one-piece leotard she wore. She looked so bloody smashing in it, but it protected her flesh from invasion like a high-security alarm system. He wanted to sink his fingers into her, skin on skin; feel the pebbled texture of her nipple against his palm; pluck it with his fingertips; taste it on his tongue.

  But the bloody outfit had no buttons; the scoop of the neckline was too high to slide his hand into; there was no flaming hem to raise. God, it looked so promising, but it was a tease, a bloody iron maiden.

  “Help me, lass,” he breathed and then gripped her head in both hands to hold it erect while he sank his mouth into the side of her throat.

  Amanda was obediently reaching up to do just that when the front door opened. Rhonda stuck her head out and called softly, “Lieutenant MacLaughlin?” Peering directly into the sun, she didn’t immediately see Tristan and Amanda within the shadows of the alcove. “Lieutenant? Are you out here?”

  Tristan ripped his mouth free and pushed himself away from Amanda, blinking lazily at first and then with deliberation as the world began to focus around him again. Drawing air deep into his lungs, he stared down at her in amazement.

  Good God. He had never, ever found himself in a predicamen
t quite like this. It was broad-bloody-daylight and he, a man who was always aware of exactly where he was and what was going on around him, had been moments away from taking her out here on her own front porch, in a recess that was only minimally shadowed.

  Staring intently at her heavy-lidded plum-dark eyes, her bruised mouth, and the abrasions caused by his heavy beard, Tristan was shaken to the core as he cleared his throat and said, “Here, Miss Smith.”

  “Oh, there you are…” Rhonda’s voice trailed away as she spied Amanda with the lieutenant and noticed her friend’s condition. Her eyes dropped to the front of Tristan’s sweats and then immediately raised to look into his eyes. “Uh, there’s a phone call for you. It’s Detective Cash, and he says it’s urgent.”

  “I’ll be right there.” Tristan leaned close to Amanda for an instant, dipping his head until their eyes were on a level. “I’m not a flaming robot,” he whispered harshly. “Dinna insinuate I am, ever again.” He turned on his heel and padded away on bare feet, disappearing into the apartment.

  Amanda’s dazed eyes followed the departing sight of rounded shoulder and arm muscles; long, smooth back; and the tight bunch and flex of his hard butt as he walked away from her. For once, she barely even noticed the gun tucked into the back of his waistband. Momentarily docile, she remained where he had left her, slumped against the wall, lethargically searching for orientation in a disoriented mind. All of her nerve endings felt close to the surface of her skin, and they were highly sensitive to outward stimuli. She throbbed with frustration. Her breasts felt heavy and full and unbearably tender; her nipples were pinpoints of pain. Her skin burned with dry heat all over her body, and between her thighs was an empty, pulpy void that ached with deprivation. Dear God. How had he brought her to this?

  “Interesting morning,” Rhonda murmured, stepping close and observing Amanda with relish. “First, you expose Randy for copping a feel.” She paused. “Then you get down and dirty in the front yard with MacLaughlin. You’re a mighty busy girl, Mandy Rose.” A warm gurgle of laughter escaped her throat.

  Amanda winced. “Please,” she whispered. “Don’t make fun of me, Rhonda.”

  “Sure.” Rhonda was immediately compassionate as she studied the look of shattered confusion in Amanda’s eyes. “Oh, kid, he really shook you right down to your poor abused toes, didn’t he?”

  Amanda nodded weakly.

  “There’s always been something sorta…untouched about you. I knew none of those clowns you dated had ever shown you what it was all about—sex, I mean. How good it can be.” Rhonda peered at Amanda, studying her intently. “Mandy, I gotta ask you. Do you still think it’s all just a waste of time?”

  “No,” Amanda whispered.

  “I didn’t hear you screaming for help, so I gotta believe you were a willing participant. So, tell me, kiddo, on a scale of one to ten, would you still rate your sexuality as a three? Do you still believe you’re not the passionate type?”

  Eyes closed, Amanda slowly shook her head no. My God, no; she had just never realized. This, then, was what everybody was always raving about. She’d never believed it was possible to feel such things. Limply, her hand lifted to touch her swollen mouth and the patches of abraded skin surrounding it. “God, I must look a mess.”

  Her eyes snapped open, locking with incipient panic on Rhonda’s. “How am I going to face everyone? They’ll all know exactly what MacLaughlin and I were doing out here for so long.”

  “Does it really matter?”

  “Yes! It does. To me, it does. Oh, Rhonda, I know it shouldn’t. I know that I am supposedly grown up and therefore shouldn’t have to apologize for my actions. But I hardly understand what I think about this myself. I need time to sort it out in my own mind. I’m not up to facing that bunch in there. God, they’ll be merciless if they know I was out here necking with MacLaughlin. Especially after the way I jumped all over Randy…”

  “Who was begging to be jumped all over.”

  “Yeah.” Amanda looked Rhonda in the eye. “But I still don’t want my business broadcast all over town. Please don’t discuss this with anyone.”

  “Honey, one look at your face and no discussion is gonna be necessary.”

  Amanda moaned.

  “Don’t panic.” Rhonda brushed a light curl away from Amanda’s dark eyebrow. “Listen, kiddo. You know I won’t discuss your private business with anyone if you don’t want me to. And you weren’t actually gone that long, anyhow.” She couldn’t prevent a grin from escaping. “It probably just felt like an eternity once MacLaughlin got his hands on you. But you’re talking to an old pro here, kid. We’ll go in now and you just walk straight back to the bathroom. Close the door, run yourself one of your eternal bubble baths, and I’ll take care of the rest. I’ll ease them out so smoothly, they won’t know what hit ’em. It’s a pity you have to miss my performance, though, since you’re one of the few people who would truly appreciate it.”

  “Oh, God, Rhonda, I love you.”

  “Hey.” Rhonda shrugged, but warm delight filled her. Amanda was very special to her. She was the first really close woman friend she’d had since she and Doris Prodecavich had drifted apart back in junior high school, following Rhonda’s decision to apply herself seriously to dance.

  It wasn’t because she wasn’t interested that she’d never found another girlfriend to take Doris’s place—her schedule simply precluded the time to make friends with women in other professions, and the dance world was a transient one. It wasn’t for nothing that chorus dancers were called gypsies. And unfortunately, the few women with whom she’d hit it off had soon moved on.

  That had left her with a host of friendly acquaintances but no real friends, and she had missed that. There were certain things you could talk about only to another woman—shared experiences only another female could truly understand. And one of the things she had missed most was having someone to confide in without fear of hearing her secrets broadcast all over town the next morning. You had to be careful who you told your innermost desires to in the dance community, for it was gossip-minded in the extreme, and news traveled fast.

  When they’d first met, Rhonda had thought Amanda Charles was probably the last woman she would ever feel close to—and certainly the last in which she’d ever care to confide. They were like night and day in just about every respect.

  For a woman Amanda’s age, who had been kicking around on her own for as long as she had, she’d been incredibly naïve when they’d first met. In a lot of ways she still was. Rhonda hadn’t tumbled to the fact immediately, though, because the image the other woman projected was one of sophistication. If one went strictly by looks, she seemed aloof, elegant, and cool, which seemed the antithesis of naïve. Yet the longer Rhonda spent around Amanda, the more convinced she became that was exactly what her friend was. Rhonda, on the other hand, was anything but naïve, and she didn’t have the energy or inclination to pretend otherwise—an attitude that had put off more than one potential girlfriend.

  With a detached, cynical amusement, she had watched the other woman operate when she’d first joined the troupe. Mandy was so unfailingly polite, so agreeable and friendly, that before they’d had time to realize what she was doing, she had already managed to distance herself from the male members of the troupe and crew. She had turned them into pals with an easy, humorous deflection of all but the most persistent of sexual advances. And once a man discovered himself to be Amanda’s good buddy, he also discovered it was impossible to introduce any form of intimacy into the relationship.

  It hadn’t been hard to guess, from her speech and her manners, that Amanda’s background had been sheltered and moneyed. Rhonda had watched the men automatically curb the worst of their tendency to curse in her presence or break off telling a dirty joke when she appeared. And her own initial reaction had been that the quiet blonde was Miss Priss personified. She had taken one look and just assumed their basic differences would make it impossible even to tolerate each other, let alone
become friends. Amanda was the proverbial “good” girl. Rhonda, on the other hand, believed in giving teeth to her own reputation for raunchy rowdiness whenever possible.

  But it hadn’t been that way. As she’d done with everyone, Amanda had quietly observed Rhonda for a while. But her smile had been friendly enough, and she had actually initiated brief conversations that Rhonda could respond to effortlessly. And despite the determination with which Amanda brushed off any topics of a sexual nature that the men might try to introduce, Rhonda had noticed that rather than poking that narrow nose of hers in the air and acting like she had a stick up her butt whenever she overheard one of Rhonda’s off-color remarks, Amanda had seemed secretly amused by them.

  At first Rhonda had thought she must be imagining it, for although she would catch Amanda smiling, her amusement was an elusive thing, disguised by a quickly tucked chin and lowered eyes. But before long Amanda had been catching her eye and giving her wicked appreciative grins. With increasing regularity, she had begun to gravitate in Rhonda’s direction.

  Later, of course, Rhonda learned about Teddy, and it didn’t take a genius to know what had first drawn Amanda to her was a personality that must be strongly reminiscent of Amanda’s dead sister. But whatever it was that had initially pulled Amanda into her orbit, Rhonda was just grateful she’d had it. She had expected Amanda to make her feel promiscuous and trashy, defensive about the way she lived her life. Instead, Amanda laughed at her jokes with genuine amusement when other people didn’t even get them, and she really listened when Rhonda talked. She made her feel witty and special and loved. Amanda liked her just the way she was—she didn’t seem to feel this compulsion that so many other people did to change her basic personality.

  So when Amanda expressed her appreciation, her love, Rhonda shrugged her shoulders and said, “Forget about it; nothing to it.” But although her voice was light, she was dead serious when she inquired, “After all, kiddo, what are friends for?”